


Glow

by essily



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Buckle up kids, Caleb calls Jester blueberry twice in this one, F/M, Friendship/Love, Sort Of, Soulmates, They love each other, True Love, True Love's Kiss, caleb is sad but thats not a secret, jester is secretly Very Sad, some shit goes down!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 23:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17693402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essily/pseuds/essily
Summary: Jester is excited to see the crystals in Calima Cavern, said to glow in response to true love's kiss. But a dangerous turn of events finds Jester and Caleb injured, drained of magic, and trapped underground. The rest of the Nein are doubtless searching for them, but Caleb may not make it through the night, and Jester won't ever get to see the crystals glow.Or will she?Caleb remains convinced that Fjord is the one she wants, but the crystals might have other ideas entirely.





	Glow

**Author's Note:**

> thank you widojest discord and thank you to my badass beta, idk if you're on a03 but snurtz if you're out there.......bless

Jester understood the importance of collecting powerful artifacts, for the sake of their own safety and keeping them out of the wrong hands, but did it  _ have _ to be in a cave again? 

“We always spend, like,  _ forever _ underground, you guys!” Jester whined, draping herself over the side of the cart. From the outside, anyone looking their way would only have seen her head and arms sticking out like a limp marionette as she pouted. Beau elbowed her harmlessly and she fell back on the bed of the cart groaning.

“Look, none of us like this, but if this thing is as powerful as they say it is…”

“We could really use somethin’ like this in our… how would you put it…. repertoire.” Fjord pitched in from the other side of the cart, where he was stretching his neck and shoulders. Just looking at him Jester felt stiff--they had all been traveling for far too long now. 

“Caleb, what do you think? Do we have to go find the  _ stupid _ amulet or is everyone else just being a poopy butthole?”

Caleb didn’t look up from his book. “Well, we are all usually poopy buttholes, but in this case they are right.”

“I’m not a poopy butthole,” said Nott. “I am a delight to be around.”  She was sitting in the front with Caduceus, who finally seemed to notice that the others were having a conversation. 

He smiled distractedly. “You’re very nice, Nott.”

“Thank you.”

“But really, Jester, I know being in caves sucks.” Fjord again. “But after what happened that one time in the tunnels, don’t we want to have some extra assurance? One more layer of armor between us and the… well… everyone?”

Jester heaved a sigh. “It does seem like everyone wants to kill us these days.”

“Yeah, and all these fuckers want to kill each other too.” Beau crossed her arms. 

“Ooh! Ooh! Maybe we can use them against each other! We can side with the Xhorhasians!” Beau and Fjord both gave Nott a look that made her reconsider, and then she raised her hands in surrender. “Or we can not do that.”

It had been a long ride. They had taken a week off in some tiny village in the foothills of the Ashkeeper peaks, but after such a long, difficult series of weeks, one wasn’t enough. Jester hadn’t recovered the strength of will to push herself through the next days of travel. She was almost tempted to break out the old traveling songs she had effectively tortured the others with on previous trips, but even that didn’t seem like any fun now.

Beau reading aloud was only funny as long as Fjord kept hating it, and he had stopped even noticing it a week into their last journey, and besides, they had been reading the same novel for ages.

Well, it still did sound like more fun than nothing, because sometimes when Beau was reading, she would catch Caleb with the tiniest of smiles on his lips. Jester was always proud of that smile. Not because it was the brightest or the happiest, but because it was the most difficult to produce. That thought was sad when she thought too hard about it, but she was proud nonetheless.

If even Caleb enjoyed her jokes, it meant they were really good ones.

Jester gave up on thinking of new activities to pass the time. She couldn’t draw with the cart pitching and clattering over dirt roads. She didn’t want to sing anymore. She had gotten bored of telling stories, especially because at this point everyone could guess the ending as soon as she began. 

On the subject of stories, though… 

“Do you guys have favorite fairy tales?”

Beau hummed thoughtfully. “I mean, I don’t know what kind of fairy tales you guys grew up with. We’re from some pretty different places.”

“Yeah, I mean, Port Damali had some weird ones. I haven’t heard ‘em anywhere else.”

“It can be anything! And if we don’t know it, then we’ll tell them to each other!”

“I can start!” Nott was already excitedly pitching in. “Has anyone heard the story of the Golden Hairs of the Devil?”

Nearly an hour and a very enthusiastically acted out story later, Jester was glad she had thought of something worthwhile to talk about. Nott was emphatic in telling about the wicked king and the good-hearted bandits, and delightfully animated when she mimed pulling each hair from the devil’s head. 

“That’s a really good story, Nott.” Fjord leaned back in the cart and put his arms behind his head. “But I think I can do you one better. There’s some freaky shit in the ocean.”

Fjord’s story had to do with monsters of all kinds, from tangling tentacled things of the deep to fish people much more alluring than the ones they had fought in the swamp, so alluring, in fact, that they lured sailors to their doom. The story he told focused on a maiden captured by pirates and drowned, who then was changed magically into a siren.

Beau talked about three brothers, con men who were conned into becoming slaves to a prince, but whose only order was to become honest men. It was filled with outrageous lies and told in Beau’s signature style, where every other word was a swear.

Yasha, who until now had been very quiet, told a story about a girl who volunteered as a sacrifice to a giant serpent, and then she and her tiny dog had worked together to behead the beast. She smiled softly when she recounted the girl’s fate, rejecting the proposal of the richest man in the country and instead marrying for love.

Caduceus pitched in with something about a shape-changing fairy and a rich man’s daughter who was pregnant with his child. It was short, but Jester liked that one in particular. “You know,” he said, “I used to hear that one in a song, but I can’t quite remember it.” 

“That’s okay, Caduceus, we can write our own song about it later!” 

“Hmm. That’s a good idea.”

“What’s yours, Jester?” asked Beau, with genuine curiosity. “You asked us, but you haven’t said what your favorite story is.”

Jester hadn’t had time to think about it, so caught up as she was in everyone else’s stories. “Well, I have a lot of stories that I really like, but if I had to pick one to tell right now…”

Jester began her tale. She had always loved it for the little embellishments her mother had placed in the story. There was a little dressmaker’s apprentice who was always mocked and scolded by the big dressmaker, but who was so talented that it was really out of jealousy. There was a prince whose aunt, the queen, sent him a card every year begging him to be married.

She left in every little detail she could remember. The three dances in the three ladies’ dressing rooms, the colors of the dresses, even the measurements.

“So every day for three days she spent all day making the dresses. The first one was for the Countess and it looked like the sun, and the second one was for the Lady and it looked like the moon, and the third one was a rainbow for the Duchess! And she had the same measurements as all three of them, so every night she wore the dress to the palace.” Jester gesticulated wildly as she talked.

“And then there was a handsome footman, who always showed her to the dressing rooms, but then he would ask to see her dress, and he would tell her she looked so beautiful, and then when the ball was starting they would dance while they waited! But then the Countess or the Lady would come, and Lotta would have to give her the dress, and she would go home and start another one.”

“And the second night when she came home, the Big Dressmaker was angry with her because the ball didn’t go well, but it wasn’t her fault, because the prince had been wearing the clothes his footman wore. And so Lotta was all like,  _ ohmygooood the footman is totally the prince and he’s totally into me you guys _ but she still had to make another dress so she made the third dress and-”

It was a long story, but she made it count. She left out the part where Lotta was so tired she couldn’t dance, and she cried in the dressing room. The story was happier without it. But she left in the part where she finished the wedding dress, only to fall asleep on the footman’s shoulder in the carriage.

“And then she woke up and they were in a little country village where he took her to a little house that he said was his own, and when she said he thought he was the prince, he explained how the prince had pulled the trick on his aunt by sending him to pretend to be the prince, and he asked her if she would marry him even though he was only a footman, and she said yes, and they got married, and they were super happy for the rest of their lives. The end.”

Nott started clapping and cheering. Her story had been long, and Beau had hung on every word, even if she’d tried not to show it.

“That was actually a really nice story,” said Fjord. “I think you got the rest of us beat.”

Beau jerked her head toward Caleb. “Caleb hasn’t shared yet.”

Caleb no longer had his face in a book, but he seemed focused enough on petting Frumpkin. He seemed to have been listening, though, because when Beau pointed out his lack of participation he cleared his throat. “Ja, um, I do not think you would like my favorite story very much.”

“Why not, Caleb?”

“It is sad, ja?”

“Well, we still want to hear it!” Nott was leaning eagerly toward him. 

“Yeah, spill the beans, dude.”

“We’d love to hear what kind of stories they’ve got where you come from,” Fjord added.

“Yeah,” said Yasha.

Caleb sighed and closed the book. He did not meet their eyes when he spoke. 

“There once was a mermaid who saw a ship in a storm. It started to sink, and a man jumped overboard to try to swim to safety. The mermaid saw him starting to drown, and she went and pulled him to shore, and when he was safe on land she watched over him. 

“He turned out to be a prince of a kingdom by the sea, and he often went down to the shore to think about the mysterious woman who had saved him. And the mermaid, watching from a distance, fell in love with him. So she went to a witch under the waves and bargained with her. She would become a human in exchange for the use of her voice. She thought he would recognize her, and not care that she couldn’t speak. She thought they would be married, because he was her true love..”

Caleb was silent for a very long time, staring out the cart at the rolling fields around them. The others waited for him to finish, but he didn’t.

“What happened then?” Jester asked, the anticipation too much to handle.

“He married another woman,” Caleb finished gravely. “The mermaid threw herself back into the sea.”

Jester slumped back against the side of the cart. It really was a gloomy ending. But it was beautiful, too, in a way, the love that she had for the prince being enough to take a risk so huge in pursuit of happiness.

“But wasn’t he her true love?”

Caleb opened his book again, but Jester didn’t miss the hint of visible pain as he responded: “That depends on if you believe in true love.” 

Jester couldn’t help but hear Caleb’s words from long ago echo in her head.  _ I don’t believe in anything _ . She liked the story, but she didn’t like that it was the only one he could think to tell. She made a note to ask him for a happy story someday soon, just to cheer him up. Beyond that, there was a tiny, inexplicable ache in her heart when she thought about it. 

She knew it was childish, but a part of her had always stubbornly believed in things like true love and destiny, like things were in fairy tales. It made the hard parts of life a little easier. She thought she might understand Caleb a little better now. If he lived in a world without true love… Jester swallowed the strange unhappiness she felt, chalked it up to the sad ending, and thought of another story to tell as the Mighty Nein journeyed on.

\--

As the cart finally approached the place the caverns were said to be, a small village became visible through the evening gloom. In these open, rolling hills, the small specks of light cut like stars through the darkness. At the first sight of it Jester felt her energy come flooding back. People! And things! And beds to sleep in! 

“Beau, wake up, there’s a village ahead!”

Jester shook Beau awake from where she had been dozing off, leaning halfway against her side. “Huh? What?”

“We’re there!”

Everyone let out a long sigh as Caduceus steered the cart slightly right to follow the road leading up to the village. Even Caleb looked relieved. 

The place looked tiny - there couldn’t have been more than a few hundred people living there, not with so few houses. But as they rolled into town, the inn looked warm and inviting, and the streets were surprisingly busy. 

Life came back to the Nein slowly. The smell of cooking food was enough to stir all of them from the lazy haze of travel. They parked their cart behind the inn and made their way inside, warmth flooding their bodies from the fire in the hearth and a sense of comfort settling on their shoulders.

The innkeeper was a short human woman with greying hair who sent them a sweet smile as they walked in, then a more curious look as she took in the party’s composition. 

“Can I help you? Rooms for the night? We don’t get visitors often, so I’m sure we have enough for all of you.” Jester couldn’t place her accent, but it was closer to Caleb’s than any other member of the party. 

“Just three rooms for all of us, please.” Fjord slid a bit too much money over the counter with a charming grin. “Fine inn you’ve got, ma’am.”

The lady fanned herself. “Oh! Why, thank  _ you _ , good sir.”

Jester could have sworn she saw Fjord blush. It was a weird look on someone who was green.

When the rooms were squared away and all their things safely upstairs, the Mighty Nein took a table in the back. The other patrons were mostly human, with a few dwarves in the mix and one or two halflings. Needless to say, they stuck out like a sore thumb for the most part, except for Caleb and Nott, who was disguised as a generic halfling.

After a few drinks, they got to talking about the caves again.

“If I am correct, the amulet should be able to give several of us similar abilities to Haste. I’m not sure how many times it can be used…”

“But it’s enough to have it locked up in a cave.” Yasha finished Caleb’s thought. 

“Ja.”

“Do you think we should ask the locals?” Fjord suggested. “They might know a thing or two about what would be in the caverns around here.”

“That’s probably a good idea, probably.” Jester looked up from her doodles of chunks of crystals. They were fun to draw, with all their geometric edges and hard lines of shadows. “And if we go in there and there are scary monsters, at least maybe we’ll know what hurts them more than other things?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go-” Beau started to stand up, but Fjord yanked her down again. 

“Not you. Let me handle this.”

Just then, the innkeeper herself - Marie, was it? - appeared next to their table. 

“Can I get you good folks another round?”

“Ja, wine for the whole table, please. I’ll pay.”

“No, Caleb, you don’t have to-”

“It’s fine.” It was a small town anyway, and the wine didn’t cost much, so Caleb handed over the gold piece and the innkeeper sent an employee to bring the bottles.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what brings a group such as yourself to Theolund?”

“Oh, we’re just some adventurers,” said Fjord. “Lookin’ for work, lookin’ for treasure, adventuring stuff. We, ah… we had actually heard tell of some kind of caves out here that piqued our interest.”

The innkeepers eyes widened and her mouth tilted in a strange grin, as if she were laughing at a private joke. 

“Calima Cavern, you say? I can tell you a thing or two about that place.”

“Please.” 

“Well, the whole thing is overrun with creatures now, but back in the day we had a story about that place around here. The place is covered with crystals. Sharp ones, nasty if you lean on them, but it’s said…” Marie leaned in close and her grin turned into a smirk. “If true lovers ever kiss near the crystals, they start to glow as bright as daylight.”

Jester gasped. “That’s so  _ cool _ ! Beau, you should totally kiss me in the cave!”

Beau laughed. “Okay, Jes.”

“Of course, it’s just a story. Nobody’s really gone in there for decades. There’s nothing worth goin’ in for, and the damned bats will keep you out anyway.”

“Bats?” Jester had never had anything against bats. They were basically just rats with wings, and rats were pretty cute.

“ _ Giant  _ bats.” Marie’s face was now deadly serious. “Don’t let those motherfuckers bite you. They carry all kinds of diseases. Poisons.”

“Shit.” Beau shuddered and rubbed her arms. Everyone at the table looked a little queasy at the thought of it, except Caleb, who was busy writing everything down.

“I tried to go in once, fancied myself a bit of an adventurer, but those things scared me right off.” Marie laughed goodnaturedly. “Well, if you’re set on going there, at least you know what to expect.”

Everyone at the table seemed aware, as she walked off, that she had made no mention of an amulet being hidden there. Jester hummed softly. “Maybe it isn’t there?”

“Or maybe,” said Beau, “whoever hid it chose that cave because of the bats.”

Jester couldn’t hold in her excitement. “Do you guys really think the crystals respond to true love!?”

“It’s nice to think,” said Yasha.

“Yeah,” said Nott, but her voice was just as quiet and a little sad.

Fjord shrugged. “I don’t know if I believe in things like true love.”

“I think it’s probably a load of bullshit, but I want to see some glowing crystals, dammit.”

Caleb said nothing, but his eyes were not moving over the pages of his book anymore, and he looked almost sick.

Caduceus put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder and Caleb seemed to return to himself a little. He coughed. “Uh. Ja. No. I don’t think that’s a real thing. There’s probably some sort of magical property to it, but nothing to do with… true love.” He huffed the last two words under his breath.

“Well, I want to see the crystals,” said Caduceus. 

Jester exhaled, thankful to Caduceus for lightening the mood somewhat. “Yeah! For now though, does anyone want to keep telling stories? Because you guys told some  _ really _ good stories.”

The faces around the table softened and smiled, and Jester felt warmth return to her heart again. They talked until well past midnight, then as Jester and Beau lay in their beds, Beau rolled over toward her and whispered, “hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really believe in true love?”

Jester’s first instinct was to say yes, but when she thought about it, really thought about it, the answer wasn’t so clear. She had always thought of her mother and father as being true loves, but circumstances had changed since then. She had fancied once upon a time that Fjord might be her true love, but she couldn’t think of him like that anymore. 

“I don’t really know. I think that if you love each other, and that love is real love, then it kind of has to be true love, right? Because that’s what true means. Why, do you believe in it?”

“I dunno. I guess I kind of want to. I think it’s more like… there’s someone else out there who’s the best for you, and you’re the best for them.”

“Like soulmates?”

“Yeah. But they don’t always meet or anything. Something like that.”

Jester hummed. “And how would you even know if you met them? You might get it wrong, or you might miss your chance, or something.”

“Yeah.” Beau’s voice had a tilt of sadness to it, and it hurt Jester’s heart that she couldn’t heal it, didn’t even understand where it came from so she could stop it at the source. 

“Do you think you have a soulmate, Beau?” Jester said quietly after a minute.

Beau sighed. “Maybe I’m not my soulmate’s soulmate.”

Jester looked at her, curled up on her side in the darkness, and did the only thing she could do. She took her blankets and dragged them over to Beau’s bed, snuggling in next to her. She felt Beau let out a breath and put her arm around her. 

“I’m sure your soulmate loves you very much, Beau. Even if she doesn’t know that yet.”

“Thanks, Jes.”

“G’night, Beau.”

“Night.”

\--

The bats would probably be sleeping during the day, so after breakfast, prayers, and some spell studying, the Mighty Nein set out for Calima Cavern. The plan was to walk as quietly as possible, with Jester’s help, through the caves so the bats wouldn’t be disturbed, and if they woke up anyway, to do the best they could to fend them off with certain spells they had chosen that morning.

Jester stood squarely at the center of the group, so nobody would end up too far away from her. The Blessing of the Trickster was instrumental here. On one side of her was Caleb, with Frumpkin sitting like a scarf around his shoulders, and on the other side, Beau had her staff at the ready. 

The mouth of the cavern had none of the fabled crystals adorning it. In fact, it looked rather plain. Dark grey, almost black stone, hollowed out in exactly the way you would expect a cave to be. Jester tried not to be disappointed.

Quietly, the Mighty Nein entered the cave. It went deeper than it appeared to, at least a few hundred feet. By the time they had reached the very end of the first segment, they were in almost complete darkness. Jester saw Caleb’s hand go to the stone in his pocket, while Beau slipped on her goggles. Caleb slipped Caduceus a potion. A wordless agreement, then, that dark vision would have to do instead of a light source. 

There were two tunnels at the end of the cave entrance, one tilting upward and one descending into the depths of the mountain. 

“Anyone else get a feeling it’s probably  _ down _ ?” Fjord whispered to the group through his teeth. Everyone nodded their assent and he continued to lead the group into the downward sloping tunnel.

After nearly ten minutes of walking through the pitch-black tunnels, they came to an open area. It was large, and Jester could hear water dripping before they came upon the place. When they entered, though, she couldn’t see the ceiling of the chamber, not even with her keen eyes. It was somewhere far above them.

She could see now that the chamber was mostly water, in a very shallow pool all around them. Within the water something vaguely glowed - bioluminescence, perhaps, some kind of tiny creature that emitted a dim light.

The only path through seemed to be barely wide enough for one person. It snaked through the chamber, giving a wide berth to the pillars of stone that seemed to hold this room’s structure. 

Though nobody said a word, she knew they were all wondering why the path was that way. More than that, it seemed to be carved intentionally, like some kind of stonework had been laid just above the water line.

The group silently agreed on a marching order, then started picking their way across the narrow path, unsure how far the other side of the empty space even was. 

Jester could feel Nott’s uneasiness from behind her, but she didn’t dare stop and turn to help her or carry her across. Any movement out of line might cause confusion, and if anyone made noise, they would wake the bats - though Jester hadn’t seen any of said bats the whole time they’d been in the cave. She was beginning to wonder if this wasn’t the right cave after all.

That was, until she misstepped and tumbled into the water. She tried frantically to stop herself from falling, but her ankle had twisted on the way down, and she landed with a loud splash and couldn’t help crying out in pain.

That, however, wasn’t what woke the bats. As soon as she fell, she understood the reason that the path had been carved far around the pillars- because they were covered in mushrooms, fungi growing up the sides of the stone, and when she departed from the path, the mushrooms began to  _ scream _ .

It was ear-splitting, and as Yasha rushed to help Jester out of the water, the Mighty Nein were covering their ears to block out the noise. But that didn’t help at all, as soon the shrieking was joined by more shrieking sounds, but these were the sounds of bats. Giant bats. And then the ceiling began to move.

Jester hadn’t been unable to see the ceiling for the darkness. It had just been covered with hundreds and hundreds of enormous bats, hanging upside down. Now they were beginning to swoop downward, their harsh cries impossibly piercing. 

“RUN FOR IT!” Fjord charged off toward the other side of the chamber, trying his best to stay on the path. Jester tried to take a few steps forward as everyone bolted, but she hissed in pain as she stepped on her bad ankle. Before she could say anything more, Yasha had scooped her up in her arms and take off running.

“I’ve got you, Jester.”

Jester wanted to thank her, but when she tried to speak it just came out as a whimper. She thought she might have broken something in her ankle on the way down, and the screeching was giving her a splitting headache, inescapable and incredibly painful.

Slung over Yasha’s shoulder, Jester could see Caleb running with Nott in his arms, slowed down by her comparably little weight, which to him must have been heavy. Nott had a bleeding wound on her right leg, and looked like she couldn’t walk.

“Caleb! Hurry up!” She managed to shout through her pain. 

The bats were descending quicker now, and when she turned her head she could see Beau jam her staff into one of them, so hard the thing went flying into the pools of water. And as the bats came down, there was more and more shrieking. 

Beau, Caduceus, and Fjord led the way, carving a path through the maelstrom of wings that surrounded them, but Caleb and Nott were barely keeping up. Jester watched in horror as one swooped down toward them, baring its ugly teeth.

She shouted in Infernal and her guiding bolt took that one down easily, but she didn’t have the time to react as another went for Caleb and bit into his shoulder with its nasty teeth. Caleb’s cry of pain nearly brought tears to Jester’s eyes.

“Yasha, let me down! Get Caleb!”

Quickly, she cast Healing Word on herself, feeling the pain numbed minimally by her own magic, and she raced for Caleb, taking Nott from his arms. Caleb, clutching his shoulder, was scooped up by Yasha, and the four of them made a run for the other side of the chamber, where Jester could see Fjord and the others waiting for them, fending off bats. 

Jester didn’t want to waste spells, so she just ran, and ran hard, ignoring the returning pain in her left ankle, until the four of them made it into the narrow tunnel where the others were standing and Caduceus shaped the stone behind them into a thick wall.

Jester collapsed against the wall, breathing heavily, almost falling down. Nott threw her arms around Jester’s neck.

“Thank you, Jester.”

“Yeah. It’s okay. Here, I can heal you.” She pressed a quick Cure Wounds into Nott’s hurt leg and watched it mend itself. For herself she did another Healing word, and then she watched Yasha put down Caleb, already healed by her Healing Hands.

They were okay. They had survived the worst of it by now, she was sure. After they took a few minutes to themselves, the only thing left to do was press on. Figuring that stealth was basically out the window now, they agreed that lights were okay again, and Caleb summoned his Dancing Lights with a quick motion of his hands.

Then Jester gasped as all down the tunnel, the lights illuminated thousands and thousands of crystals.

\--

The crystals were blue and purple and green, all at the same time, shifting with the angle at which Jester looked at them. Despite all that had just happened, seeing the crystals Marie had talked about just boosted her mood through the roof.

She was not the only one fascinated by them. Beau had said at least 6 swear words when talking about how cool they looked. Yasha occasionally poked one just to see. Fjord and Caleb seemed nonplussed, but Caduceus had already broken some off the wall of the tunnel and given one to Nott, who snatched it as quickly as she would with anything so shiny.

The crystals were not blanketing the walls by any means, but there were plenty of them. However, they were small, as if they were relatively new growths of crystal, and the tunnel itself, as Caleb brought up, looked like it had been shaped quite intentionally, unlike the first tunnel they had gone through. 

At the end of the tunnel, their suspicions were proven right when they came upon a spiral staircase carved out of stone. 

“Huh.” Fjord leaned forward to try and look downward into wherever the staircase went, but it was a fruitless endeavor even with Caleb’s lights. “Guess we’ll have to go down and see.”

“But these crystals are sharp as  _ shit _ ,” Beau interjected. Not only that, but the deeper into these caverns they went, the larger and more frequent the clusters of crystal were, so that the walls of the narrow spiral staircase were almost covered with the prismatic gems.

“We’ll just have to be careful,” Fjord decided, and they were descending again. 

It was more difficult to walk down a slippery staircase in low lighting without touching the walls than Jester had hoped. Especially since that ankle was still bothering her just a bit. This was definitely a twinge of pain that healing magic hadn’t been able to eliminate right away.

She breathed deep and focused on keeping her balance. She would tell the Traveler later how brave she had been through the pain and how she had saved her spells for her friends, like she knew a good cleric would. They would need healing later, especially if they were going to leave the way they came in.

Jester did have to stop herself from falling once or twice, but so did everyone, sustaining a few nicks on their hands as they shuffled down. It was nothing worth a healing spell, but it was painful nonetheless. That seemed to be a theme today.

But just like any day, it could be made brighter with a little effort. Jester hummed a tune as they descended, a drinking song she had heard in Zadash once, and soon all the Nein were humming along with her. For a moment Jester felt something like fate. Something like belonging. This, now, was right for her, was where she was always meant to be. On a big adventure with a group of friends, sharing brief moments of perfect synchronicity that reminded them all how well they fit with each other.

Just as they were halfway through the third chorus, Fjord held up a hand for them to stop. Ahead of them was another chamber, circular, with the crystal making such a thick layer on the walls Jester couldn’t even see the stone behind it.

The room was small and a bit cramped once all of them had made their way out of the staircase, but as Fjord searched the room, underneath a thinner layer of crystal he located a door. Not a doorway, but a real door, iron and heavy, and tightly locked. 

“Is that a spell or a real lock? I don’t see a keyhole.” Nott already had her tools out, but looked disappointed not to have the chance to use them

“It’s okay, I’ve got it!” Jester said a few words in Infernal and snapped, and the door swung gently open. Fjord gave her a stiff nod, accompanied with a small smile, before pushing the door the rest of the way open.

Beyond it was a larger chamber, which to Jester’s surprise was already lit up. It was a cavernous space, almost like a temple in its proportions and setup. On distant walls, small glowing orbs were encased in iron, which in turn seemed overgrown with crystals. Tall pillars of carved stone supported the arching ceiling, also covered with glittering gems, and at the far end there was what almost looked like an altar.

There were more doorways, a large one behind the altar, and two smaller ones, one on each side of the chamber, that led into dark hallways.

The Mighty Nein made their way toward the doorway in the back, but a sense of dread suddenly began to creep over them, and as Jester glanced to her left, she caught sight of a humanoid skeleton against a far wall.

She couldn’t help but gasp. It was half-consumed by crystals and lichens, the bones long since picked clean by  _ something _ , but that only made it more obvious that there had been something down here to eat away at it.

“Oh, shit.”

Just as Jester had begun to suspect something, Fjord’s exclamation cut through her thoughts. She whipped her head around to look at where he had suddenly stopped walking, and saw what he meant. His right foot was within a glowing circle that had appeared as he stepped, arcane symbols traced around the edges. The circle was at least fifty feet in diameter, centered at the altar, and glowing bright blue, even brighter than Caleb’s lights, almost blinding.

That was definitely bad.

And just to confirm that suspicion, suddenly there was a shrieking sound, more frightening than the sounds in the bat cavern, and from the ceiling something huge and black descended upon them.

Jester’s eyes widened.

For a moment she was back in the Happy Fun Ball, standing alone against a horrible foe, her friends all gone and barely standing on her feet.

Another dragon.

And this one was black, and massive, and as it landed on the altar, snarling with horrible black teeth, Caleb muttered one word that resounded in the hearts off all the Mighty Nein. 

“Fuck.”

\--

It was only luck that was getting them through the battle. The dragon was strong, and far too hard to land a blow on. Even Yasha was hardly making a dent in it. It didn’t even seem to be made of flesh and bone, but darkness itself. 

It was dim in the chamber, especially with the occasional brilliant flashes of light ruining Jester’s adjustment to the dark. She watched Beau get knocked to the ground, her back scraping gruesomely against the crystals there, skin shredded from the sharp edges of it.

Jester shouted a quick Healing Word and watched Beau’s skin start to knit together again as she pulled herself to her feet. Somewhere Fjord blasted the dragon with a bolt of dark energy from his sword, and the dragon hardly flinched. It had turned and was approaching Caleb, who was bloody and muttering a spell under his breath. He had done the most damage so far, even from where he had been keeping his distance behind a pillar. A well-timed fireball had done some real good for them, but it had also caught the dragon’s attention.

Now it was approaching him at an alarming rate, and Jester’s heart pounded in her ears. Caleb was so  _ squishy _ . 

“Hey!” She shouted without thinking, jumping out from behind the pillar. She watched as the dragon turned its snarling head in her direction. “I taste way better than he does!”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Caleb register what she had just done, before she shouted in Infernal and hurled a Guiding Bolt in the dragon’s ugly face.

The spell struck it right between the eyes, and the dragon actually  _ recoiled _ . 

“Guys, I think radiant damage hurts it more!” Jester called out to her friends. She was met with various cries of dismay and variations on “but I don’t have those spells!” Caduceus did, she knew that for a fact, but with a single glance at him she could tell his magic was running low, if not completely gone.

She would have to take matters into her own hands. She gritted her teeth and stood her ground, throwing up Spirit Guardians as the dragon started to come closer, too close for comfort. It was bloodied and getting weaker, but it could still snap her up with one bite. It was hard not to be afraid. She had been here before, staring down a dragon.

But then she had been alone, and fighting only for herself. Now she was with the Mighty Nein, and she knew they wouldn’t leave her behind. Not again. Right?

She choked down her fear, and then from the corner of her eye she saw Caleb throw out a hand, and everything grew sharper and slower. Jester felt herself filled with energy, filling her to the brim, making her feel sparkly and like she was buzzing inside. She recognized it as Haste.

Caleb had given her Haste, and she was going to use it.

Over and over she threw Guiding Bolts at the dragon, advancing close enough that the Spirit Guardians would affect it too. The others still fought, closing in on it, but her damage was the greatest of all. She narrowly avoided its attacks more than once. 

But after she discovered its weakness, the dragon was rapidly losing the fight. Between her Guiding Bolts and, when she began to run low on energy, her Sacred Flame, it was stumbling and then falling to the floor of the cavern with a sickening thud.

For a moment, they collected themselves, helping each other off the ground, Yasha dispensing healing while Jester felt all the energy leave her and for a few seconds she couldn’t move, feeling like there was lead in her veins.

“Ja, I am sorry, that always happens afterward.”

Caleb’s voice sounded pained as he awkwardly patted her shoulder, sidling farther away from the dead dragon as if it would pop back to life any second.

“No, Caleb, it really helped me, don’t apolo _ whoa _ -”

The floor had suddenly rumbled and shifted underneath her feet. For a moment she thought it had just been her, but then she saw everyone else looking at each other. The ground shook again, just slightly.

Caleb in particular seemed to have his balance compromised. He pitched to the side, but Jester managed to catch him before he could hit the ground.

“Fuck!” Beau was steady on her feet, but the look on her face was pure frustration. “Killing the dragon must have set something off.”

Jester was the closest to the archway in the back. She looked at it quickly, and then at Caleb, and they both took off running. “Hurry!” She called to the others. “We probably don’t have a lot of time, probably!” Jester and Caleb raced toward the back room. She could see it ahead, see a small pedestal where a golden charm was displayed, locked inside a clear case.

Jester skidded to a stop and tried to snatch up the case, but it was attached to the stand. She tried to break it with an axe, but it seemed to be charmed. “Fuck! Caleb!” 

She looked behind her to see Caleb still running, struggling to breathe. Behind him, the others were far from them, looking uncertain, but about to run, as huge chunks of crystal were beginning to fall from the ceiling and shatter against the ground. Shards went flying and Nott barely missed being impaled.

“Caleb, help! It’s locked!”

“Shit. Ja.” Caleb all but dragged himself toward the pedestal. He was looking like he was about to vomit, but he began to mutter words under his breath in Celestial. Then he stopped, shook his head, started over.

“Caleb, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I-  _ scheisse _ .” He began the words again and cut himself off, hand flying to his shoulder. But he began one more time, and cast Knock, the case flying open. Jester snatched up the amulet quickly, and with hardly a moment’s consideration, put it around her neck.

“Come on, Caleb, we have to go!” Jester started off running. Already she could feel the amulet’s power, similar to the Haste spell Caleb had given her before. She was fast now, faster than she had ever been. She bolted out of the doorway she had entered through and saw the others, who were already retreating toward the other side of the room, and they were calling her name- and Caleb’s.

Fjord’s desperate outstretched hand was soon obscured as a large piece of rock came crashing down between them, sending clouds of dust into the air. There wasn’t much time. 

“Caleb, come on-” but Caleb was not there. Jester whirled around to look behind her, her heart in her throat. Caleb was still at the pedestal, and he was on his knees, struggling to keep himself upright.

A huge cracking sound came from above Jester. Time was slowed as she looked up and saw massive rocks descending in slow-motion from above, tumbling from the ceiling as it caved in.

In a split second that felt like a full minute, Jester looked at the falling rocks, and then at her friends, and back at Caleb, bent over in pain, and at the dim outlines of her friends making it to the stairwell. She could have made it across the chamber before the place caved in. But that would have meant leaving Caleb behind. 

Jester remembered being alone once, facing a dragon, and being more afraid than she had ever been before.

The room behind the altar was not falling apart. It was small, and stable, and even if the rest of the place came tumbling down, that room would not. 

Jester made her decision. As cries of “Jester” and “Caleb” disappeared under the crashing of stone, she bolted back into the small room, just in time to see Caleb collapse completely.

\--

All the lights were out.

Jester could see in the dark, but as a child that hadn’t made it any less scary, and it was only adding to the fear that chilled her now, gripped her heart like icy fingers. 

Caleb had hit the ground just as she skidded to safety. For now it seemed the effect of the amulet was over. Time returned to its normal speed, and her heart raced in her ears again. She had to focus, focus on the things that mattered.

Jester reached for Caleb. His breathing was labored. He had clutched his shoulder, hadn’t he? On a hunch she pulled back his coat and his shirt and had to steel her stomach against what she saw there. She had healed the wound, but from the place it had been, Caleb’s veins were dark. She couldn’t tell the color in the darkness, but it was unnatural, not the color blood should have been.

It was poison, or a disease, or something. It had probably come from that bat that had bitten him an hour or so ago, but whatever it was had been slow-acting, so that it only hit him now, after the exertion of battle had settled in, made him susceptible and weak.

Jester had barely enough magic left to summon up a Lesser Restoration. She braced her hands where the dark veins spiraled outward and said a prayer to the Traveler, sending all her magic into his shoulder.

Caleb gasped, not quite in pain, as his eyes flew open. Jester watched the darkness in his veins start to dissipate.

“No-” His voice was weak and shaky. “No, take them out, take them out, take them-”

“Shh,” she hushed him, pulling his head into her lap, running fingers through his hair the way she had once seen Nott do after one of his nightmares. She hoped it was enough. “It’s okay, you’re not there, you’re here, I’m here-”

Caleb slowly began to relax. “Jester?”

His eyes were searching wildly in the dark, looking for her, but not finding anything. It was pitch black.

“It’s okay, it’s just me!” She hoped her voice was soothing and not desperate. 

“Jester.” This time her name was a grateful exhalation. “ _ Was _ … What happened?”

If he even noticed her fingers in his hair, he said nothing about it, so she repeated the same motions, hoping they were helping to calm him down.

“When we killed the dragon, I think it set something off, and the cave collapsed. And you looked really sick and we couldn’t make it out. Caleb, if you were poisoned, why didn’t you say something?”

Caleb lifted a shaking hand to his shoulder and prodded it gently. A sharp hiss of pain told Jester what she needed to know: her healing had not been good enough. And the veins were still darkened. It was not as bad as before, but it was still enough for concern. 

He didn’t answer her question. “The others, did they get out?” He tried to push himself up with his uninjured arm, but he was having no luck. Jester helped him at least lean against one of the large chunks of rock that was blocking what had once been the doorway to the small chamber. 

“I think so.” She hoped she sounded more hopeful than she felt. “I saw them get to the staircase, or at least I  _ think _ they got there…”

“Hold on, let me…” Caleb lifted his hands and started saying the incantation for Dancing Lights, but as soon as he finished, the magic that had begun to accumulate sputtered out. “ _ Scheisse _ .” He tried again, but to no avail.

“Caleb, stop, you’re just going to hurt yourself!” 

He didn’t reply, just dropped his hands back to his sides. His head rolled to one side, his eyes closed. In a moment of panic Jester grabbed him by the face and turned him toward her. “Caleb?” His forehead was hot. Fever. “Oh, no.”

One of his clammy hands came up to grab her wrist weakly and push her hand away. For a moment she retreated, thinking she had somehow made him uncomfortable. But then he shook his head. “I’m fine.”

That just made Jester all the more sure that he was not fine at all, not even a little bit. But there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing she could do at all. She leaned back against the stone and tried to bite back the tears that were gathering in her eyes.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” The concern in Caleb’s voice was surprisingly gentle. He still could not see her, she realized, but his eyes were open and searching. 

“I’m okay, Caleb.” It was not  _ entirely _ a lie. Everything that had been bleeding was not bleeding anymore, and her ankle was definitely not broken, just painful as all hell. Even thought she knew Caleb couldn’t see it, she forced a smile.

“Then why… why didn’t you run?” His voice was weak and vague, trailing off every few words.

“I think you need to lie down, Caleb. Come here.” This time when she put hands on him to move him, he didn’t resist. She got the feeling he couldn’t. She guided him gently downward so he was lying with his head in her lap, his injured shoulder close enough for her to keep an eye on. “Do you want me to try and make some light in here?”

“Nein. No. If you make a fire, it will just burn up all the air.”

Jester hadn’t thought about that. Air. The Mighty Nein would need time, days probably, to find a way to reach them in the cave-in. Jester realized with a sinking dread that she didn’t know how much air they actually had in here, or how long it would last.

“I’m sorry, Caleb.” She pulled herself together, embarrassed by the way her voice shook. “Here. You need to drink water. You have a fever, and I’m out of healing until I sleep.”

Jester found her waterskin on her belt and guided Caleb’s hands around it. He took a few sips, but it seemed like for now that was all he could stomach. It would have to be enough. She prayed it was enough. 

They stayed there in silence for a long time. Occasionally Caleb would need water, but mostly he lay there, at times murmuring nonsense words or things in Zemnian that Jester didn’t understand. Sometimes he was totally there, trying to make conversation. Other times she thought he didn’t know where he was.

Jester let him lie down with the haversack as a pillow and got up to investigate the rest of the room at least three times before finally giving up. She finally sat back down next to him and didn’t get up again. It was useless. No hidden doors, no levers to pull, nothing of any use. Caleb had not even been able to call Frumpkin when he tried.

“Caleb?” Jester spoke quietly in what was probably the fifth or sixth hour they had been in the dark.

“Ja?”

“When you woke up, before… you were saying ‘take them out’.” She watched him closely for a reaction, but he didn’t move, and his face didn’t really change. It was the same tight mask of pain it had been for hours now. She was almost certain the poison was getting worse. And she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his voice when he’d woken up, desperate and disoriented. “Was that about when Trent Ikithon… put those crystals in your arms?”

There was silence for a while.

“Ja.” It was a short, quiet breath.

Jester felt her heart sink. “Was being around all the crystals down here making you remember that?”

The look he gave her was hard to decipher, especially in the dark. “I am… always thinking about it. I didn’t need the cave to remind me.”

Jester nodded, and tried to be comforted by that. “I’m sorry we brought you down here anyway.”

“I’m sorry… you didn’t get to see the crystals glow.”

She sighed and put her head down on her arms, resting on her knees where she’d pulled them against her chest. “You were probably right, though. It’s just a story.”

Caleb mumbled something under his breath. 

“Huh?”

“Nothing. I said, Fjord is gone anyway.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

He was pointedly not looking at her. “Well, you like him, ja? And he likes you. If anyone was going to be your true love, it would be him.”

She knew that a few months ago she would have been giddy with the thought, but now it didn’t feel like that at all. Fjord was not who she had thought him to be. He was not  _ bad _ . He was still her friend, and she still did love him, but she loved him the way she loved any of the other members of the Nein. That crush had long since turned into something else.

“I don’t think it would be him, though, actually.” She shuffled awkwardly where she sat, trying to get comfortable.

“Who else, then?” She would have thought, from the tone of his voice, that he was just trying to make conversation now, to pass the time while the poison spread through his veins and they waited for their friends to find them. But Jester knew a lot of things, and she knew when Caleb was faking being unconcerned.

Jester opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped. She was glad Caleb couldn’t see in the dark without his lucky rock, because her face was flushed purple. 

She had been thinking about that exact question for a long time. About what love actually was. It hadn’t been right with Fjord, she had realized early on, just something out of a romance novel that felt fake and forced after some time. Even the easy intimacy she had with Beau, while loving, was not romantic in the way she thought romance was supposed to be. Molly’s delightful attention had felt flattering and made her blush all over, but that was nothing deeper, and useless now.

The more she had thought about it, the more she thought about Caleb. She was only now beginning to make sense of it- the way she had felt when Caleb called her  _ Astrid _ when they’d danced. The gentle happiness, softer than her usual bubbling excitement, that she felt when spending time with him. The tenderness in his constant concern, the gentle understanding she felt like an aura from him when she couldn’t keep on the mask. 

This sad man who understood her sadness, who made her feel safe and cared for and known, this handsome but scruffy man who could be a perfect gentleman when he wanted to. Her friend, who always took her seriously. 

She thought of that lift of pride and joy she felt when he stood up for her or backed her up on something, a plan or an idea. She thought of his hand on the small of her back as they waltzed.

But with those thoughts came sadder ones, darker ones. Astrid, always looming like a shadow behind her. Whatever she had been to Caleb, whatever she had done, it haunted him. And his fervent belief that he was not  _ good _ , would not ever be good. His insistence that he had been using them, even though she knew he cared about them, cared about  _ her _ . He had to.

Right?

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think…” She remembered last night when Beau had spoken to her about soulmates. “I think maybe I’m not my true love’s true love.”

Caleb was quiet for a while. “Why would you say that?” he finally asked. Jester’s throat was tight. But before she could speak, he went on. “You are an amazing woman. You are kind, and brilliant, and good in a fight. You are an artist, and a great one at that.” 

She put her head down, blushing harder than before. He was in earnest, or she wanted him to be, the way she wanted so many thing but only rarely could believe them. She thought she believed him. She thought she wanted more of it.

“What is not to love?” The words were small and seemingly harmless, but the way they gripped Jester’s heart was painful. How could she tell him? How could she ever tell him how it ached, to hear him say those things, and yet if she asked  _ him _ to love her… 

She didn’t want to imagine what he would do. If he rejected her, then was everything a lie? It was worth it, she thought, to wait in silence, to never say a word of it, if it meant Caleb would keep seeing her to the heart. If it meant he would never have reason to turn her away.

“But what if they just don’t think of me like that? And what if it’s all really new for both of us, and I’m not sure yet, and what if I say something wrong, or do something wrong, and… what if I ruin everything?”

Why was she saying these things? Caleb was always the kindest ear to her troubles, but this was cutting it close, was walking on a wire. She had leaned on him when he’d barely had the strength to support himself. After all the revelations about his past, about his fears, she could see her old missteps now. She had already hurt him more than once. 

Her job was to keep them safe and keep them happy. And gods, of all smiles,  _ his _ was her favorite, not only because it was the rarest. One wrong move, and she might never see it again.

“I think…” Caleb began, very slowly, and Jester could only hear his voice and her own breathing in the heavy silence. “If they give you up, they are a fool. And they never deserved you.”

“Thanks, Caleb.” She managed a small, shaky smile, even though there was nobody there to see it.

Caleb shifted where he was, drawing in a sharp hiss of breath when he used his injured arm. 

“Caleb! Don’t hurt yourself!”

“I am fine.”

“No, you’re not, you’re hurt and I can’t heal you, so  _ please _ don’t make it worse!” 

He sighed and stopped resisting as she helped him settle on the hard stone floor, the haversack behind his head. It couldn’t have been comfortable. 

“We could, ah, we could use my coat. It is getting too hot anyway.”

It was not hot in here. Even Jester knew it was cold, too cold for a human especially. But Caleb was burning up with fever, so she gently pried his coat off, trying not to think about how close they were. About how close she was to ruining everything.

Once he was settled with his coat bundled up under his head, she took another look at his wound. She had just moved back the collar of his shirt when his hand caught her wrist.

After lying down a moment, his eyes looked heavy and tired, as if he were already drifting asleep. But this look he gave her was still steady and intent. “Don’t.”

“I have to heal you.”

“But you cannot. Not right now. You will only make yourself worried.”

“I’ll still be worried about you, Caleb.”

“Don’t,” he said again, but softer this time, and his eyes had begun to close once more. “I… do not deserve that.”

Jester wanted to scream at him that he was good, that he was kind, that he was everything he believed himself not to be. But part of her, a very sad part of her, knew that he would never really believe her.

“I don’t care. You get it anyway.” She returned her hands to his shoulder. When he moved to push her away weakly, she clicked her tongue at him. “Stop, you dummy! I’m just going to clean it, ugh!”

Caleb actually laughed at that. Weak, but real. He chuckled at her tone of voice and let his head fall back as she cleaned the wound. The laugh was soon replaced by a pained noise, but while it had lasted, she had felt pride lifting her heart.

\--

Jester didn’t know how long it had been. Caleb was lapsing in and out of consciousness now, sometimes awake enough to whisper her name in confusion, but usually asleep. 

The poison was spreading. Her restoration spell had done little to help him, not after the hours and hours that the poison had continued to run through his veins. It was bleeding his life away. She knew that. She knew that, and she didn’t want to know that.

Jester didn’t want this to be the end.

She had gone into this giddy and lighthearted, speculating about crystals and true love and magic amulets. She had wasted her spells, thinking it would be easy. How had she ever thought this would be easy? She had been so overcome in the moment, wanting to save her friends, wanting to be the hero, believing stupidly that she could do it all.

Now her friend was unconscious beside her, helpless on the cold ground. She could do nothing. She hated it. She hated that she could do nothing.

And she didn’t want to die here. The longer she waited, the more she thought of it. It wasn’t just Caleb who was dying. Even if she healed this poison out of him, there was no telling if the Mighty Nein would ever reach them.

Maybe her friends had given up on her already. Maybe they had assumed she had died in the collapse, and they weren’t even coming. But no, Nott loved Caleb far too much for that.

And hadn’t Beau once said she loved her? Wouldn’t Beau come for her? Wouldn’t the Traveler? But last time, the Traveler had not saved her. What if she was too deep underground for even him to see, lost to the world forever?

She didn’t want to die so far from home. Her mother would find out, but from who? From Fjord? From Yasha? Caduceus, probably. She imagined her mother would cry when he told her.

Jester hadn’t realized she was crying until she heard herself sob. In the stifling darkness, it was loud to her own ears. The tried to quiet herself. She couldn’t wake Caleb, he needed rest.

She gripped her skirts in her hands, fabric bunched between her fingers. Then, so light it was barely noticeable, she felt a hand rest on hers. More firmly, then. Intentionally.

She looked at Caleb. His eyes were just barely open, and looked like they would close any second. Carefully, she loosened her hand, and he threaded his fingers through hers. 

“Blueberry,” he murmured, and it was the sweetest voice he had ever used with her.

Jester hid her face with her other hand. “You need rest. You need to go back to-”

“Jester. It’s okay to cry.”

As if her body believed him when her heart did not, she felt the breath rip from her chest again, and she choked on a sob. Her hands shook violently, her chest heaving and stuttering.

“Jester,” he whispered again, just her name, and the dam broke. She didn’t know how long she cried, but he did not let go of her hand. He held on through the worst of it.

At last she started to calm down, and her breathing returned to its normal pace. Occasionally she still hiccuped, but the tears had stopped coming. And to her surprise, she felt a little better. Still afraid, but better. Not as frustrated or angry.

She heard Caleb breathe out, shaky and slow. She looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since he had taken her hand. He was watching her, eyes hardly open. If she looked closely, she thought she could see a tear on his cheek. His face was pained again, but that could have been the wound. Even the way his eyes seemed pictures of sadness, that could have been the poison. She didn’t want to face the possibility of him hurting for her.

She knew she was doing nothing to comfort him. She knew her own sadness was more contagious than her joy. She had been fighting her whole life against it.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’m not… I’m not making you feel any better.”

“Jester…” he squeezed her hand, but it was a faint motion, the strength drained from him almost completely. “It breaks my heart to see you cry, but that is not why.”

She looked away from him, then, because the tenderness on his face was too much for her.

“It is because you deserve to be happy. More than anyone…” He trailed off as his eyes began to close again. “More than… anyone.”

“I don’t want to die down here, Caleb. And I don’t want us to die alone.”

His grip was so weak, but he held on as tight as he was able. “We are not alone. You are with me.” She held on tighter, as if to drive the point home. She was with him. She would never leave him. He smiled, softly, sadly. His eyes were closed. “I could not ask for a better way to die.”

Slowly, fumbling, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it.

“Caleb…”

Jester meant to say something, but couldn’t think what. And then, ever so slightly, the crystals all around them began to glow. A dim blue-green, so subtle she could barely see it.

Caleb certainly couldn’t, not in his state. And once he had pulled her hand away from his lips, his breathing had steadied out. He was asleep.

Jester looked at the crystals, her eyes filling once again with tears.

They were so dim, but they were glowing. So faint, but  _ they were glowing _ . 

Softly, though it pained her to do it, she untangled her hand from Caleb’s. She needed to sleep. She needed to sleep and pray he was still with her in the morning. It was all she could do. The fear was petrifying- what if she woke up and he was already dead? What if the poison took him in his sleep?

Jester felt his forehead again, and this time it was cooler than before. She looked at the wound and saw that the darkened veins had retreated and were nearly gone. She let out a long breath. He would be okay. He just needed to sleep. They both needed to sleep.

Jester didn’t want to think about what the glowing of the crystals meant. She didn’t want to think about it, because it wasn’t going to mean what she wanted it to mean. It never would.

She lay down facing away from him, the million questions in her head muffled through the haze of exhaustion. She kept her eyes open until the faint light from the crystals slowly died. Then she slept, and she dreamed.

\--

_ Jester was on her way to the ball in a dress that shimmered like a rainbow, in all the colors under the sun. Not that anyone could see it. It was covered with her old green cloak, which was so drab that nobody would have thought to look beneath. _

_ When her carriage rolled to a clattering stop beside the palace, she found the door opened by the same handsome footman who had opened it the night before. He had reddish hair and a beard a bit too scruffy, but she thought it was handsome. She thought everything about the footman was handsome. _

_ But she also remembered what her mentor had told her about the ball the previous evening- that the prince had looked disgraceful, dressed in what was hardly fit to be his footman’s attire. In her constant state of exhaustion she couldn’t make sense of it beyond a vague thought that the footman might be the prince himself, but those were silly thoughts. _

_ Still, she wondered, as he offered a hand and helped her down from the carriage. They exchanged no greeting, as it had been at the other dances, until they were safely inside in a small dressing room. Jester put down her bag, with her dirty spare dress, and turned to see the footman looking at her with a half smile on his lips. _

_ “I would very much like to see your dress.” His accent was strange and sweet, a reminder of the faraway land the prince was said to come from, and presumably, his footman. _

_ Just as she had the night before, and the night before that, she smiled and removed her cloak to reveal the glittering gown she had made, precisely to the specifications of the Duchess. _

_ She was so, so tired from making dresses every single day, but the look on the footman’s face was worth it all. When he saw her in the rainbow dress, his mouth opened in a gasp, and his eyes softened so that she could see an ocean of affection within. _

_ Just then, they heard the music begin in the ballroom, a beautiful waltz that signaled the beginning of the ball. As he had before, the footman extended his hand.  _

_ “My lady, would you do me the honor?” _

_ Jester was so tired, and so cold, but now she wanted nothing more than to dance with the handsome footman, so she took his hand. Slowly they began the dance, and his piercing blue eyes did not look away from hers, but then she began to stumble. _

_ She stopped the dance. She couldn’t do it any longer. Her smile faltered, and at once she felt the waves of exhaustion overtake her. Not only that, but the embarrassment, the frustration of being forced to work for days on end and never be recognized for her work on the dresses. She knew the ladies who wore them wore them only once and then threw them away. _

_ Jester couldn’t take it anymore. She pulled away from the footman and sat down and cried. “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’m sorry, I know you wanted to dance.” _

_ But the footman just sat down next to her and put his arm around her and waited for her to finish crying. _

_ “It’s okay. It’s okay to cry.” _

_ “I’m just tired of working so hard and nobody caring. I’m tired of not being enough. And I can pretend to be the Duchess, but I can never really be her.” _

_ The footman drew her very close, so she could only look at him. “When I told you last night how beautiful you looked, I meant you. Not the Countess, not the dress, but you. I think you don’t need to be anything more than yourself. And you are a very talented dressmaker, ja?” _

_ Instead of dancing, that evening before the Duchess arrived, the footman simply listened as she told him her troubles, and suddenly they did not seem so big. Now she had someone to share them with. _

_ When the Duchess arrived, Jester gave her the dress, showed her how to wear it, how to turn this way and that and show off its sparkles and baubles, and then she listened at the door as the Duchess entered the ball. So many gasps and sighs of delight upon seeing her. But for the first time, Jester thought that perhaps they were cheering the dress and not the Duchess. Maybe her work had been worth something. _

_ When she left the dressing room, the handsome footman was waiting for her. Together they walked back to Jester’s carriage and he helped her up. But with a panic she realized it was the last night of the festival, and the prince was due to choose a wife. There would be no more waltzes and no more dresses after this. _

_ “Will I see you again?” She asked. _

_ The footman looked at her with such gentle longing that she wanted to cry again. “You will. I promise you will.” _

_ Jester arrived back at the workshop to find the Big Dressmaker already waiting with a scowl on her face. There was one more job to do. She had to make the wedding dress.  _

_ She didn’t need to be told. She sat down and sewed and sewed, to her own measurements which matched the measurements of the Lady, the Countess, and the Duchess (the prince had been very specific when looking for a wife). Jester made the most beautiful dress she had ever made, and when morning came, she put it on and went outside to see her carriage was already there. _

_ Strangely enough, the footman had come in person to collect her. He smiled warmly and this time had to lift her, as exhausted as she was, into the carriage. He got in beside her and they set off.  _

_ For the first time, they had time to really talk. Trying to stay awake, Jester told him all about her mother, then about her favorite places in the city, and then about her childhood pets. And then the footman, whose name was Caleb, told her that he had worked for the prince for a very long time, and that he hadn’t seen his home in years. _

_ “But I thought you were the prince,” Jester mumbled, half-asleep on his shoulder. He put an arm around her and breathed a short laugh. _

_ “Why would you think that?” _

_ But Jester couldn’t answer. She was already asleep. And when she woke up, she opened her eyes and they were somewhere in the countryside, and there was a charming little house, which Caleb told her now belonged to him, and to her, if she wanted it… _

\--

Jester woke up freezing cold. Which was strange, because she hardly ever got cold. That was the first thing she noticed. The second thing she noticed was that she was curled up against something warm, something breathing.

Caleb.

With a jolt she woke completely, remembering the panic of the long hours she had been waiting in this cave. She thought she had gone to sleep facing away from Caleb, not touching him, but now her arm was thrown over him and her head resting on his good shoulder, and even stranger, his arm was around her.

Jester quietly untangled herself from his arms, fighting a flush of embarrassment. Caleb stirred a little, but not completely. Jester didn’t want to wake him. She had seen him having nightmares and she had seen him sleeping well, and this was the second thing.

She did take a quick look at his shoulder. It was almost completely healed. Jester waved her fingers in the air just to see- and, yes! Her magic was back! She said a prayer to the Traveler under her breath and cast a quick Cure Wounds on Caleb, watching with satisfaction as the last of the poison disappeared from his veins.

It was still pitch black in the cave, but as Jester finished healing Caleb of the poison, she could barely make out a sound. From the other side of the room, distantly, she could hear muffled clanging, like pickaxes behind the wall.

“Caleb!” Jester whispered, nudging him awake. He woke up far less eventfully than before. She sighed in relief as he blinked up at her.

“Jester?”

“Caleb, I think they’re here! Or almost here! I think they’ve found us!”

“What…” He rubbed his eyes. “What happened?”

Did he not remember? Jester was almost relieved. He had seen her cry, and as comforting as his presence had been, now it just embarrassed her. “It was a cave in. Don’t worry, I kept you safe!”

“Oh. Ah. Thank you.”

With a few motions of her hands and a quick prayer, Jester cast Sending to Fjord. 

“Fjord! It’s Jester! We’re okay down here. I think I hear you. Come get us, please? I’m super hungry. Okay see you later then bye.”

Caleb’s tiny smile was almost imperceptible, but definitely there. “You know, I think that was actually twenty-five words this time.”

Jester scoffed. “Duh, I can count, I’m not stupid. Wait, shh!”

Fjord’s voice was speaking in her mind. She felt the little crackle of magic that meant he was speaking back.

“We’re on our way. Hang tight.”

She didn’t miss the depth of the relief in Fjord’s voice. It made her heart just a little bit warmer. 

“They’re coming for us.”

Caleb was sitting up now, looking worlds better than he had the night before. “Good. What… exactly… happened? A cave-in?”

“Yeah, and you were poisoned, and you didn’t say anything, and I stayed and tried to heal you, but I didn’t have a lot of magic left, so you had a fever, and you weren’t really there all the time, and you got better on your own, mostly.”

She didn’t talk about the way he had held her hand, so quietly, so calmly, as she’d cried for fear of dying, for fear of losing him. She didn’t talk about that kiss on her hand that she could  _ still feel _ , or the way the crystals had glowed. “Not a lot really happened, really.”

“I think I remember… some of that.”

“Well, what matters is you’re better now, right? And our friends are coming to get us!”

Caleb nodded. “Ja. I, ah, I am sorry. That I was not more present. To keep you company.”

“Well, we talked a little.”

“Oh. I don’t remember. About what?”

“Well, you… said that you were sorry I didn’t get to see the crystals? And also that Fjord wasn’t there to kiss me, but then I said that I don’t really like him. Anymore. That way. Really.”

Caleb couldn’t see her still, for the darkness, but she saw a pensive expression on his face. “Oh. Okay.”

Jester leaned back against the fallen stones, much more comfortably than she had been able to the night before. Caleb was okay, and she was going to be okay, and her ankle actually didn’t even hurt anymore.

Caleb was putting his coat back on, checking all his pockets for his spell components. “Oh, wait-” He snapped, and then Frumpkin appeared, immediately running to Caleb and rubbing his face all over him. Caleb smiled and scratched him under the chin. “It is good to see you, too.”

Jester’s heart warmed looking at them. But underneath that, there was the question which had not left her alone. Why had the crystals glowed when he kissed her hand? And why had it been so dim? She almost didn’t want to know, but it was torture  _ not _ knowing, guessing what it could be without ever being able to find an answer. 

She was glad he didn’t remember. 

They had to wait only a few more minutes before suddenly there was a cracking of stone and then the room was flooded with torchlight. Jester covered her eyes on instinct, the light almost blinding after so long in the dark. It took a moment for her to realize who was holding it. Caduceus’ face came into view, adorned with a serene smile that Jester could tell was equal parts relief and pride.

Jester stood on her feet, ready to greet her friends, but was interrupted by a pair of arms being thrown around her and a body colliding with hers. “Jes!”

She barely saw the flash of green before Fjord was hugging her tightly. She laughed, caught off guard by his suddenly open affection. She got the feeling that if Fjord weren’t significantly weaker than her, he would be spinning her around in the air.

“Fjord, you smell like cave dust.”

“Hey! We just saved your asses and that’s all you gotta say to me?” He was indignant for a second, but then his face softened. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Jester.” Then he seemed to remember his manners and took a step back.

Jester saw Nott go flying toward Caleb, who enveloped her in the kind of hug that made Jester wish she was Nott’s size just to experience it. “Caleb, don’t you dare do that ever again! I will have words with you, mister!”

“Ja, okay.” Caleb’s smile was so soft, Jester guessed that he would have responded kindly to anything Nott said to him in the moment.

Before Jester could say a word to anyone else, Beau was on her next. It nearly knocked the wind out of her, as strong as she was. 

“Aw, did you miss me, Beau?”

There was a smile in Beau’s voice when she said, “don’t tell anybody.”

Yasha was not really one for hugs, so she just waved at Jester over Beau’s shoulder. She waved back, smiling brightly, and this time it was not put in for show. She didn’t have to pretend to be happy that her friends had returned to save her.

Caduceus waited his turn. He looked significantly less worn than the rest of them.

“I was the one with the tracking spell,” he explained, seeing her face. Jester laughed and went in for one of Cad’s famous hugs, and it was better than ever.

She saw Fjord offer Caleb a hand, even though they were both  _ super _ weak, and help him to his feet. Fjord had obviously been worried about them, she could tell from the way he held on a little too long once Caleb was standing. 

Then Beau really did knock the wind out of Caleb with a tight hug. Jester came to stand next to Fjord while they watched the proceeding awkwardness. Caleb did return the hug, to his credit.

“How did you find us?” She asked him. 

Fjord gestured to what Yasha was holding- a pickaxe. “There was a lot of rock to clear away, but this place has got a shitload of hidden tunnels.”

Beau broke away from Caleb and cleared her throat.

“Cad started trying to locate your symbol of the Traveler when we were deep enough in. It led us straight to you.” Beau jostled her by the shoulder and Jester was so, so glad to be back with her again.

“I admit, uh, for a while there we weren’t sure if you two had made it.” Fjord rubbed the back of his neck. “I was, uh… we were worried.”

“Fjord was going crazy,” said Yasha.

“ _ Yasha _ -” 

Everyone, even Caleb, began to laugh, except for Fjord, who had taken to standing in a corner to escape judgment.

“Come on,” said Nott. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies, let’s get out of here.”

“Wait,” Beau said from beside Jester. “We still gotta try something first, right?” Then she gave Jester a comparably aggressive peck on the cheek.

They waited a moment. The crystals didn’t glow.

“Aw. Bullshit.”

Jester felt a little sick, but she managed a smile. “Don’t worry, Beau, I think it was probably just a myth or something. I do love you  _ very _ much.” She returned Beau’s kiss, pretended quite respectfully not to see her blush beneath her smug expression, and then they set off back up the tunnel, making their way toward the surface.

“Oh, by the way, I got the amulet, you guys!”

“Oh. I’d kinda forgotten that was what we were here for. Mind if I see that thing?” Fjord held out a hand and Jester took off the amulet, handing it over. He studied it curiously as they walked. 

It was a long but safe journey back to the surface, so there were plenty of breaks, and everyone went at their own pace, sometimes with quite a distance between them. Jester happened to be walking alone when Caleb caught up beside her.

“Hi, Caleb.”

“Uh Jester. I…” He came to a stop, so she did too. She watched him, but he was unable to meet her eyes. His head was down. “I wanted to say thank you. For being there with me. If it were not for you, I… doubt I would have made it through the night.”

“You probably would have. You did a good job of healing on your own.”

Then Caleb’s eyes raised to meet hers, and his voice was as intent as it had been last night, discussing true love.  _ What’s not to love? _ He had said, and listed good things about her like they were written all over her face.

“I mean it, Jester.” Then, quieter: “I do not deserve you.”

_ But you have me, _ she wanted to say,  _ even the crystals know _ .

“You’re my friend, Caleb,” she said instead. “I wouldn’t leave you behind.”

He seemed to think about this for a long while, and the tension in the air was palpable. But then Caleb turned forward again. “Well. We should get out of here, ja?”

“Yeah.”

They continued walking, catching up with the rest of the group just in time to see a light shining down from above. Finally, they had found their way back to the surface, to shining sun and open sky. Jester smiled as she ran out into the light, twirling in the gentle breeze.

She was alive, and she was free.

But there was something new in her heart that weighed on her, in the form of a dim blue-green glow and a question she didn’t really want to know the answer to.

As she twirled around, for a moment she could have sworn she saw Caleb staring at her, with something like heartache on his face, but then he looked away again, and the moment passed.

\--

There was something about a near-death experience that made everyone a little friendlier for a while. They’d all nearly lost each other quite a few times, but it had never been quite so nerve-wracking for any of them. The closest thing had been Jester facing the dragon alone, but that had only been a few seconds. She had been down in that cave with Caleb for almost twenty-four hours. 

Now everyone was just a little less guarded with each other. Beau had insisted on sitting next to Jester in the cart on the way back into town, and Fjord had silently placed himself next to Caleb, across from Jester. She got the feeling he needed to have an eye on both of them. 

The conversation was slow and casual. Comfortable silence filled most of the time. Jester was happy enough with relaxing in the quiet as the sun started to set behind the mountains. The day was balmy and beautiful, and she hadn’t realized how much she missed the  _ smell _ of the breeze.

None of them had actually eaten anything since the fight with the dragon, though some of them had slept, so the first order of business was getting some food from the inn.

They shuffled in, and they must have looked as starved as they felt, because with a single glance Marie was shouting into the kitchen, and before they could say a word they were sat back down at the table in the back, eating a full dinner of steak and potatoes and wine, which Marie had insisted on giving to them for free as long as they told her a bit of their story later on.

They laughed and drank and talked and joked, the first meal in a full day reviving them from their exhaustion. As the night went on, the energy of the tavern lowered and calmed, until it was just them and a few other patrons. In the far corner, a pretty girl with a fiddle struck up a tune, and two of the other patrons got up and danced together. It was hardly a dancing-together song, but they were drunk enough to make it work. Jester sketched it in her journal.

Apparently, Nott was also drunk enough to make it work, and pulled a disoriented Yasha out of her chair to dance. Beau and Jester, leaning on each other, watched with rapt attention as Yasha fumbled through the steps, and Nott, who was not much better, instructed her with an iron fist.

Beau was laughing, but in a way that told Jester she had definitely had enough to drink for the night. “Okay, you need to go to bed.”

“But Jeeeeessss…”

“Get! Your butt! Up!” Jester hauled Beau to her feet and took her up the stairs to their room. She had to lift Beau up to deposit her in her bed, and then took off her boots, setting them carefully beside her bed.

Jester started to take off her own cloak and boots, realizing with dismay that they were covered in dirt from inside the cave. She would have to get them cleaned somehow. She guessed she could always ask Caleb for a spell to do that. 

Jester bit her lip. Maybe that wasn’t the best idea. What if she ended up saying something stupid? What if she accidentally told him what had happened? She didn’t feel ready to face him yet.

“Ugh. I need a bath  _ so bad _ .” Jester scrubbed at her forearms.

“They prob’ly have a, uh, bathhouse here, right?” Beau slurred from her bed.

“I dunno, probably.” Jester sat down on her own bed and pulled out her sketchbook, thinking of what to write down and what to draw from the crazy few days she had just had. The ideas were slow to come, probably because she was still so worn out from all that had happened. One idea did come, but it was one that put a lump in her throat.

“Hey, Jester? Could I see some of your drawings?”

“Of course, Beau!” Jester grinned and hopped over to Beau’s bed, where she had apparently managed to sit up on her own. Beau propped her face on her hands while Jester flipped back a few pages to show her her illustrations.

“There’s Fjord doing the cool sword thing! And there’s Yasha, and here’s Caleb with Nugget, and here’s a  _ really _ good one I did of you! Look!”

It was a silly but well-done drawing of Beau with her fists clenched in agony, kneeling on the sands of the beach in Nicodranas, with  _ Professor Thaddeus Come Back _ scrawled underneath.

“Should I be offended or flattered?”

Jester just giggled. “Look, here’s Caduceus driving the cart and feeding his beetles, and here’s Nott when we were sharing pastries, and… oh…”

They were on the page with the crystals now. It was a full spread of them, different geometric patterns and angles filling the page, lines of charcoal and ink made to look like real gems. They looked stunningly close to how the gems in Calima Cavern had looked, actually, now that she thought of it.

Jester’s shoulders sagged.

“Jes? You alright?”

“Can I tell you something, Beau?”

Beau shifted where she was sitting, focusing her attention on Jester. She seemed to have sobered a little bit. “Yeah, of course.”

“I did see the crystals glow.”

“ _ What? _ ”

Jester hung her head miserably. “Well, it was really dim, and it wasn’t anything like Marie said it was, and I still don’t know why…”

“Hold up. Caleb kissed you? Or you kissed him?”

Jester rubbed the back of her hand. “He kissed my hand. He was almost asleep, and he probably wasn’t thinking, and his eyes were closed so he couldn’t see but the crystals started glowing. But… it was only a little.”

“And you’re… sad about that?” She was trying to be sympathetic, Jester could tell, but it seemed she didn’t understand. “I thought you…”

“No, I do! I do… but he doesn’t. That’s why they didn’t glow a lot, I think.”

“Oh, Jes…” Beau put her arms around Jester.

“I just had to tell someone, you know?”

“Yeah. It’s good to get it off your chest.”

“And I know that it’s stupid, because the crystals were probably glowing for a whole different reason, and it didn’t have anything to do with  _ true love _ or whatever, but I…”

“You love him.” Beau finished.

Jester could only nod. 

“Look, Jester, Caleb can be kind of a shit. He’s all quiet and weird and he’s got a lot of shit going on in his head, so most of the time he just mopes around and acts like he doesn’t care about us. But like, he  _ does _ … fuckin’... care. A lot. He cares about  _ you _ . And, I mean…” Beau lowered her voice. “I know you don’t know this, but I could sort of tell- he was fuckin’ terrified of you finding out about shit in his past. Because he cares what you think of him more than almost anyone else.”

“Really?”

“I’ve never seen him laugh except with you. Ugh. That sounds so sappy and romantic.” Beau pretended to gag, and that put a smile on Jester’s face. “My point is, I think he feels the same way as you. And if he doesn’t, he’s fuckin’ stupid. Probably the crystals just don’t glow that much. Or since he kissed your hand and not, like, your mouth and shit.”

Jester nodded, tried to believe it. “Thanks, Beau. You should really go to sleep.”

“Yeah, whatever. G’night.” Beau let Jester shove her back onto the bed, and in just a few seconds she was snoring lightly.

“Goodnight, Beau.”

Jester sat on the bed for a few more minutes, thinking about what Beau had said. Did Caleb really think of her so much? Jester had watched him so closely ever since she realized how she felt, had picked apart every word he said to her. But she hadn’t wanted to ascribe too much meaning to his looks or his words. She had done that with Fjord, and it had only gotten her heartbreak.

She loved him. She knew that, and she was not afraid of it. What she was afraid of was being  _ stupid _ again. Was letting herself believe that Caleb could feel the same way.

What was wrong with her? That had never been her way of thinking. But the embarrassment with Fjord, and now this, with the crystals, it was a lot to think about. It was just that this time, they already had a friendship worth keeping, worth protecting. She couldn’t ruin that.

How could she forgive herself if she lost that? The way he smiled when she scribbled in his books, the way he just laughed and suffered through her pranks. The badly-hidden concern he had about her childhood, misplaced as it was. He was so subtly protective, and when he looked at her sometimes, she felt like exactly what he said she was. An amazing woman.

Jester snapped out of her thoughts to find herself softly smiling. The smile didn’t last very long. But she wasn’t so sad anymore, now that she had talked about it, and the fact remained that Caleb at his most unguarded had kissed her hand. Had  _ kissed _ her. 

She suddenly wasn’t as ready for sleep as she had thought. She wanted to see him now, and draw dicks in his spellbook. All day she had been avoiding him, and now she felt silly for having done that. If she was so scared of losing their friendship, why had she been running from it? 

She had to find him and apologize. And explain herself, a little. She thought about it as she stood just in front of the door to her room. She could lie and say that something really embarrassing had happened that she wasn’t sure if he remembered. Or she could say that he had just been super annoying and talkative when he had a fever so she didn’t want to hang out with him anymore. 

She could-

There was a knock on the door.

“Jester?” Caleb’s voice, soft and shy and earnest, all just in the speaking of her name. Jester’s nerves were replaced with a flood of warmth to her chest, but they did not disappear completely.

Jester opened the door to see him standing there, looking as he always did. Dirty and ragged and scruffy, just the way she liked him. Well, he could always take a bath just to make her especially happy, but mostly she liked the way he was.

“Caleb?”

“I, ah…” Caleb looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. “I wondered if you would like to… take a walk. With me.”

\--

“Are you trying to kill me? Because, like, if you’re gonna kill me then you should probably do it in front of everyone and not take me all the way out here and be a coward.”

To Jester’s delight, Caleb huffed a laugh at that. “I am not going to kill you.”

“Then why are we all the way out here?” They were walking along a path, headed in the same direction they had gone the previous day, toward the caves. Well, it wasn’t really the previous day anymore, since it was well past midnight. Caleb’s Dancing Lights lit the way in the near-total darkness.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Jester pouted. “Fine.”

“Besides. I… like it when you draw in my books.”

“I know.” She tried to sound as smug as possible, just to see the smile turn up the corners of his lips. 

“We’re almost there.” 

Jester didn’t recognize this place. They had diverged from the road that led to Calima Cavern a few minutes ago, and now they were riding on a smaller path, among jutting rocks and boulders of dark stone.

A few minutes later, Caleb came to a stop, looking around. “This is the place.”

“Where are we?”

“You will see in a moment.” His tone was not without fondness.

“Ugh, the suspense is killing me!”

Caleb had led her to a place where the foothills really became mountain, and here there was a sheer cliff face Caleb approached it, and for a moment Jester was confused, until she finally saw a hole in the stone, no larger than a usual doorway. It would have been very easy to miss if she hadn’t been looking hard. 

He turned back to her, and there was some trepidation in the way he was breathing, the tightness of his shoulders. “In here.”

Caleb ducked through the little doorway, his lights going with him. Jester followed, thought she didn’t have to duck, small as she was. Entering whatever space Caleb had led her into, she was met with a familiar sight.

Crystals.

It was a small cave, no larger than the first floor of the inn, and every inch of the walls was covered in crystals. To the back there was a tunnel leading down, but Caleb was not leading her there. He was simply standing in the middle of the chamber, watching as she took it in.

Even the beauty of the place couldn’t distract her from the sinking feeling in her stomach. He had led her to another cave of the same crystals. Why? To prove once and for all that Jester was just a silly child and that true love didn’t exist? That the crystals were a legend and nothing more? That he didn’t… didn’t feel the same?

She had never expected to be his true love. She had always known that was far-fetched. But the crystals seemed to think that he was  _ hers _ .

“Caleb, why are we here? How did you find this place?”

“Fjord told me about it. This was how they found their way in to save us. Jester, I… I heard you talking to Beau.”

Jester’s heart pounded in her ears. She didn’t lift her head to look at him, couldn’t, or she would cry or be sick or run away-

“How much did you hear?”

“A bit. I know that… when we were down there… I made the crystals glow.”

There it was, the shot that struck home. The punch to the gut that she had been expecting.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” She could imagine Caleb’s brow furrowing, him looking at her with the intent focus he used for everything he cared about, everything, he-

“I don’t know,” she choked out. “I’m just… I’m sorry.”

“Jester…” He said her name softly, coming toward her and taking a gentle hold of her wrists. He pulled her hands away from her face where she was trying to hide it. Still, she kept her head down, did not look at him. She didn’t want to be pitied.

“It’s okay, Caleb.” She began to back away. “You don’t have to explain, it’s okay, I understand that you don’t feel the way I feel, but you didn’t have to bring me all the way out here just to prove it!” By the end of the sentence she was nearly shouting, but her voice was too weak to shout.

“Jester… That’s not why I brought you here.” Her head snapped up.

“Then why?” She didn’t have the will to be angry with him, not when he was looking at her like that. Like she was everything he had told her down in the cave, witty and amazing and talented and-

“I am a very bad man. A bad and selfish man.”

“You know I don’t believe that.” She shook her head, but didn’t look away from him. It was important that he understood this, understood that in spite of everything he said about himself, she knew him better than that. His hands slid down to hold hers, gently, reverently.

“I wanted to do this from the moment I heard about the crystals, but-”

“Do what?”

“I didn’t want to find out it wasn’t true.” His eyes were the same blue as the crystals, and when he looked at her he looked at her like a spellbook, like the survival of the universe depended on every detail he saw on her face. “But I heard what you said to Beauregard, more than I should have heard, and I… I cannot help myself, not if I can change your mind, not if I can prove it to you-”

“Prove what?”

He was very close now, so close that she could not meet his eyes. So close that he was bending down towards her and her face was turned up toward his. 

“I am a very selfish man, Jester.” His eyes drifted down to her lips, full of longing, and she lifted a hand to his cheek, watched him lean into her touch like it was instinct alone, like she had her own gravity and he was helpless to resist it.

Then Caleb’s hand came to touch her cheek, to brush the hair from her face, and he leaned in and he leaned in and he leaned in and-

And he kissed her.

He  _ kissed _ her.

_ He kissed her _ .

He kissed her like a man drowned, gasping for air. He kissed her like a man starving. And yet he kissed her with lips and hands as reverent as a god was holy, as if the very act was worship. 

She held onto his jacket and kissed him back, with all the intensity she could, all the force with which her heart was pounding in her chest. She pulled him closer and like a dam had broken he finally,  _ finally _ touched her for real, his hovering hands settling where they had only glided before and tugging, pulling, wanting. She tangled her fingers in his hair, and so did he, pulled him closer by the lapel of his coat as he pressed the small of her back. 

From the crystals light  _ bloomed _ , light bright enough that she could see it without even opening her eyes, and she could tell by the way Caleb was holding her that he saw it too. Her heart felt flooded. Flooded with joy and impossibility, with love and with him. 

Slow, slow, they pulled apart, but still held each other. Jester opened her eyes, carefully as if he might disappear and it all would have been a dream. And she remembered her dream from the cave, the fairy tale, and this felt just as perfect, just as too-good-to-be-true. When would she wake up? But no, he was here, and when their eyes met he smiled the most beautiful smile.

Her favorite smile. Not just because it was the rarest of them all, but because it was  _ his _ . And here, in the blue-green glow of the crystals, more beautiful than ever. Not a fairy tale, made up for telling to children. Her own fairy tale, true and real and lovely.

His smile only grew as he looked up to the shining ceiling of crystals above them. He looked back at her again, eyes all crinkled from smiling. “You know what that means, ja?”

Too good to be true, but true nonetheless. Even the crystals knew so.

“Say it to me?”

His fingers danced on her cheek and he touched his head to hers.

“I love you, Jester Lavorre.”

Jester kissed him this time. He was so close. It was so easy. And he melted right into it, laughing like he only laughed for her. The lights brightened.

“I love you too,” she whispered, like it was a secret. But he knew. He had to know by now. They kissed again. And again. And she laughed, and his expression was so tender.

Had that look always been a look of love? She had seen it before: when she’d told him he was a good man, done a silly dance to break the tension. If that was what love looked like on Caleb, then  _ gods _ , he loved her. 

“Caleb,” she breathed.

“Jester.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in true love.” In anything, even. It was strange, then, that he had taken her here, had trusted these crystals to prove his love to her. That he had had faith enough in a fairy tale.

Caleb smiled, sheepish and adoring. “For you… I think I do.”

She wanted to ask him a million indulgent questions. She wanted to know how long he had loved her, and how easily she could bring him close to her, and how helpless he was for her, like this, right now. She wanted to know if he would steal her away and marry her, even though he was not a prince.

She didn’t ask him any of those things. She put her arms around him. In the brilliant blue glow of the crystals, they held each other and swayed, as if there was music to dance to. Perhaps there was, but nobody else could hear it.

\--

Jester liked fairy tales. She liked believing in things that were near impossible. But right now, Caleb was making it very easy to believe in. No, he was not making it difficult at all, with the way he kept pressing kisses to the place where her neck met her shoulder, the way he kept stopping their walk to twirl her around and stop her heart with that damned  _ smile _ .

She knew they needed to make it back to the inn, before the others started worrying, but it was so tempting to stay here forever.

They walked back hand-in-hand, in the dark with Dancing Lights guiding the way. She could hardly believe that earlier in the night she had been spilling her feelings to Beau, convinced that her love was unrequited. If anything, that was now the fairy tale, the strangely distant past in which Caleb did not love her.

“What if we stayed out here all night?”

“I think the others would be worried, ja?”

“We’d be missing twice in two days! They would be so angry! Fjord would go  _ nuts _ .” She giggled, remembering his face when Yasha had exposed him in the cave. 

“Speaking of the others…”

“Oh. Yeah. Caleb, do you want to keep this a secret? It’s okay if you do, I just didn’t think of it!”

“Nein. No. It’s okay, I…” He squeezed her hand. “As long as you are okay with it… I want them to know.”

Jester couldn’t lie, her heart skipped thinking of it. Being together, for real. Like a romance novel. Better than that.

“We can tell them, then. In the morning?”

They came upon the inn, and as they entered the warmth of the dying fire sank into their bones, made the whole world feel softer. 

“In the morning,” Caleb agreed.

Together they climbed the stairs up to their rooms. They each went to open their doors, across the hall from each other, and paused. Turned back to each other. 

It was so easy to stand up on her toes and meet his kiss. It was harder to pull away.

“Goodnight, Caleb.”

“Goodnight, Blueberry.”

One more kiss, and they pulled apart to their own rooms, closing their doors and slow as they could. Quietly, Jester made her way over to her bed and opened her journal, meaning to write something, anything, about what had just happened. But she put the pen down.

Maybe this story could be just for her.

She lay down on her bed, staring at the ceiling, imagining crystals there, glowing beautiful blue and green, and she was happy.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in 6 straight days of writing so i hope yall like it, pls leave a comment!!


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